Meryl Streep Calls Disney Out For Being A Racist Misogynist, Proves She Can Throw Shade Like The Best Of Them

On the slight chance you weren’t already petitioning the courts to force Meryl Streep to adopt and re-raise you, this latest story ought to do the trick. At last night’s National Board of Review Awards (just work with me here, it’s a thing), she presented a best actress award to Emma Thompson for Saving Mr. Banks. But it wasn’t your usual “this actress deserves the award for her amazing work blah blabbity blah.” Instead it was an anti-Disney diatribe aimed at calling him out for being a racist misogynistic anti-semite. Which is allegedly referred to in KKK book clubs as being a triple threat.

Though he would say that because he was supposedly a hideous anti-Semite. But his poetry redeems his soul. Disney, who brought joy, arguably, to billions of people, was perhaps … or had some racist proclivities. He formed and supported an anti-Semitic industry lobbying group. And he was certainly, on the evidence of his company’s policies, a gender bigot.

As you probably recall, Saving Mr. Banksis a movie about Walt Disney, made by Disney. So Meryl’s speech timing was unorthodox to say the least. But she’s Meryl Streep and she’s at the glorious point in her career when she can do whatever she wants. Honestly, she could’ve dropped her drawers (and you know she call them drawers) and gone to the bathroom on that stage and no one would’ve said a thing. Sure they would’ve been shocked, but you know their shock would be followed by a standing ovation.

And before you start fretting that Meryl stole Emma Thompson’s thunder and made her big night all about herself, read just some of the wonderful things Meryl says about her in the same speech.

Not only is she not irascible, she’s practically a saint. There’s something so consoling about that old trope, but Emma makes you want to kill yourself because she’s a beautiful artist, she’s a writer, she’s a thinker, she’s a living, acting conscience. Emma considers carefully what the fuck she is putting out into the culture! Emma thinks, “Is this helpful?” Not, “Will it build my brand?” Not, “Will it give me billions?” Not, “Does this express me? Me! Me! My unique and fabulous self, into all eternity, in every universe, for all time!” That’s a phrase from my Disney contract. I’m serious! “Will I get a sequel out of it, or a boat? Or a perfume contract?”

Never in the history of presentation speeches (that I’ve seen) has one actress so wonderfully honored the winner for being a good person as well as being a good actress. Too often in Hollywood, we overlook the whole good person thing in order to recognize the good acting thing. So it’s nice to see Meryl using her celebrity powers for good. Also it’s nice to see Emma Thompson awarded for her acting. Ever since I saw her do her animal impressions on Ellen, I’ve been rooting for her to win something.

I read about this else where (sorry crushableyou are my fave but not only source of celeb gossip) and loved it. While I definitely think a brand can move away from its past, I think a lot of times we just forget about it, and then the brands history gets whitewashed. It’s refreshing when people can say hey we can still love these things but let’s not forget about the negative things they did in the past. Especially because Saving Mr. Banks did not mention one negative thing about Walt Disney, everything was all light and goodness. I mean at the very least have him smoke a cigarette since he was a huge smoker….I also loved when Russel Brand called out Hugo Boss’ roots…

Jenni

So you’re saying we’re not monogamous….

elle

Sorry Jenni, it’s me not you. I just need more then what this one relationship can offer me…

moishe pippick

Except that Hugo Boss himself really did join the Nazi party and made uniforms for them. Walt Disney on the other hand made anti-Nazi propaganda films. See, the irony of all of this is that Disney was provably NOT an anti-semite. The worst thing about the coverage of Meryl Streep’s speech is that most news sources are treating her allegations like they are established facts, and not providing any examination of what turns out to be misinformation. For every bit of anecdotal ‘evidence’ that Disney hated Jewish people (he met with Nazi filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl, he belonged to an anti-semetic Hollywood lobbying group, etc) there is more concrete evidence that against it, such as that he also met with the Jewish communist filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (and more publicly than with Reifenstahl), had a Rabbi included as part of the Disneyland opening ceremonies, was named B’nai Brith man of the year in 1955, and hired two Jewish brothers (the Sherman brothers) to be his chief songwriters and ended every work day with them, As for being a sexist, Streep read from a letter (which was actually written by a woman) without providing the context in which it was written. Just watch any Disney movie even from that era (late 30s early 40s) and you’ll see many female names in the credits. More than that, a female artist named Mary Blair was the chief designer of several classic Disney movies as well as one of their signature rides, It’s A Small World (with music by those Jewish brothers, the Shermans).

I think the story persists because people have good intentions in condemning anti-semitism, and feel that we need to confront the dark anti-semitism of our countries past. That’s all well and good and appropriate and should be made clear at every tribute to actual anti-semites like Charles Lindbergh, but when it motivates people to characterize a person who was actually a friend of the Jews as an anti-semite it crosses over into dangerous territory.

Jenni

How did you choose the username Moise Pippick?

moishe pippick

It’s just a funny sounding name. When my wife was a kid her parents used to tell her that her Hannukah presents came from ‘Moishe Pippick’ (Pippick – also puppick – means navel). It’s also kind of slang in Yiddish for a know-it-all type of person, so I’m trying to be self-deprecating since I am going online anonymously and discussing things with people I don’t know and will probably never meet.

Jenni

I’ve only heard my grandmother say pippick, so it threw me for a loop.

Joanna Rafael

My yiddish speaking grandmother calls people Moishe Pippick too.

moishe pippick

It’s a fun name to say! In Grand Theft Auto IV there’s a Jewish part of town and the NPCs say it if you brush against them.

MCR

The idea that Disney was a racist, anti-Semite, and Nazi sympathizer is being repeated as a kind of general public knowledge, but it’s true I’ve never heard any solid evidence for or against the belief. I’m going to try and look into this. Whether or not the allegations against Disney are true, I admire your post because it attempts to find the actual facts of the matter, rather than accepting an established rumour at face value.

Mousewitz

Look up “The Three Little Pigs”. It was reanimated to remove the imagery in 1948… after the Nazis were defeated and most people were in agreement that hey, the Holocaust was a shitty thing to do.

And yes, they did produce anti-Nazi was propaganda — but only after America joined the conflict — after Pearl Harbour. So it was very much in their interest to make those films, sorry to say. I’m an animator and a fan of some of Disney’s work, but I’m not keen to defend him as a person and I think the problems in some of the work the studio puts out are well documented.

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

Agree with you here. Literal people want “evidence”, “proof” as they label it. Documentation. Double-blind studies, etc etc etc. The Anti Semitism lies inside the body of work, intuitive, affecting you almost subliminally and is far more dangerous than any group he might or might not have joined. BTW the above image was of a type very common in those times, never brought anyone up short because the consciousness wasn’t there. When Pogo says, “I have met the enemy and it is us.” comes from Kelley’s work to raise consciousness. Disney’s work was to remove the teeth from the fairy tales, amuse children, present an nonthreatening story for parents, and make a pile of money doing a surface paint job on them.Read these same fairy tales through Bettleheim or Pinkola Estes and they are very different stories indeed.

The 3 Little Pigs is a moral tale but it is also a capitalistic one, teaching capitalism through morality and is insidious.You may build a straw house not because you are lazy but because it’s the best you can afford to do. BTW Straw Bale House building has suffered greatly in terms of bank loans, zoning, permits, insurance because of The 3 Little Pigs story. And Straw Bale houses do better than wood construction in all areas and are simply better environmentally that wood or brick.But the insidiousness of the popular story has held them back in this country when they would be a salvation for many people.

This is the level Streep is addressing, not his personal life. Keep the two separate when you wish to think more correctly.

MCR

Yes, the Jewish “wolf” character was very nasty. What I have to consider is whether this was at all unusual for movies made in the 1930′s. The images of all minorities were negative and insulting, at least by contemporary standards, almost as a matter of course. Black characters were especially horrifying, including those in cartoons. That’s not to justify these images, but to place Disney’s movies in context. I don’t know if 3 Little Pigs is evidence of virulent anti-Semitism or just of being in step with American attitudes of the time.

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

It’s a generation thing. All this has been scrubbed out now as revisionism does. And most older people have such poor memories from watching TV they don’t remember so Disney gets a pass on this. You see you always want “proof” as if you are in a scientific laboratory conducting experiments that still only give you “statistical” proof. Facts are fictions as Foucault has taught us and are “true” or “false” determined by the Dominating Discourse of the time they are in. It was OK during the 40′s and even 50′s for the big bad wolf to be dressed in a Yiddish costume as he knocks on the door of the Little Pig’s house. That is subversive way below the belt of “proof” as it infects childrens’s minds like a secret virus. Far more effective than Disney saying anything in an interview or joining a club or being seen with bad doers or good doers.

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

Streep I am sure made her comments based on Disney WORK not Disney’s LIFE and life choices or actions. Disney’s work is Anti Semite based on the look of his cartoon characters both human and animal, but so very subtle that only those who take everything literally can miss it. His early feminine characters simper, and display all the body language of passive female behavior so he was Anti Feminist also with his princesses. But then he followed the fairy tales. Sort of.

Do not forget that the first ancient tribe who avowedly desired and did keep its RACE pure were the Israelites. They were not into trading sisters off to other tribes for affliation purposes. ONLY with tribes within the Jewish Nation could they intermarry. So racial purity was begun by the Jews themselves and Hitler, reading through Nietzsche and his inversions, simply inverted the “purity’ ASPECT against them. Any dogma can be turned against the dogmatist, which is one ofthe beauties of Nietzsche’s teachings.

moishe pippick

“simply”? There’s nothing simple about genocide. Not that I agree with anything else you said (if Jews are so obsessed with purity then why do I, an Ashkenazi Jew, look more like a European than an Arab?) but to use the word “simply” in relation to a genocide is obscene.

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

Every action has a reaction. Genocide was a consequence of an idea put in force in ancient times by a tribe considering itself the “chosen people of god” and we are now seeing this continuing consequence with what they are doing to the Palestinians, with US support and encouragement. There are few Palestinian Christians left in Palestine as they have left, now almost all Muslims feeling the genocide from Israel. “Identification with the aggressor.” – Freud

moishe pippick

What’s happened to Palestinians is a crime against humanity but it isn’t a genocide. Look up the term.

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

Give the Israelis time. It’s a slow genocide.

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

Your logic is impeccable NOT.”If….then why do I…….” is a spurious argument from a child. How old are you? Never mind, if you are 50 you are still thinking like a 5 year old. Sad. and you get to vote and breed.

moishe pippick

Are you saying that because I use a spurious argument I should not get to vote or have children? Really?

http://twilightirruption.blogspot.com/ abbeysbooks

Where did I say you shouldn’t? Link? I am just deploring the fact that you can do both. do we need more stupid children in a democracy which DEPENDS on an enlightened citizenry who vote on issues instead of their harmones. And who cannot ever know what it means to raise and educated child because they themselves are not educated. And don’t throw certificates and degrees at me because we all know they are just paper given to you for your high interest student loans that profit the banks to enable you to get jobs and pay the banks off. That’s how stupid young people are. They still think they have something when they hold that piece of paper in their hands to take to the job market.

And trust me I have more of those pieces of paper than almost anyone so don’t tell me anything about how valuable they are.

‘STANLEY KUBIRCK always used to tell people,
—————WALT DISNEY was the
—————————ONLY REAL ARTIST
———————————Hollywood ever produced.
And when I show you the KUBRICK —DISNEY link
[ in my upcoming film project ]
————your JAWS are going to HIT the FLOOR.”
JAY WEIDNER
Jeff Rense radio
Jan. 09, 2014

And just how many of Streep’s precious nothings
will people be looking at 50 years from now?